'Black salve' cancer conman banned from treating patients

A "self-proclaimed healer" who convinced a Victorian woman that he could treat her cancer using a special paste has been banned indefinitely from providing health services.

North Warrandyte man Dennis Wayne Jensen has been slapped with a prohibition order by the state's Health Complaints Commissioner over his use of a widely-discredited treatment for cancer patients.

Self-proclaimed healer Dennis Wayne Jensen.

In May The Age revealed the story of nurse Helen Lawson who died from ovarian cancer after shunning mainstream cancer treatment

Mr Jensen allegedly prescribed her an aggressive and painful treatment called black salve, which ate away at her flesh, leaving her swollen and in pain.

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Ms Lawson's family says Mr Jensen claimed he had cured his own brain tumour twice and had cured hundreds of others of cancer.

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Black salve (also known as red salve or cansema), is a widely discredited alternative cancer treatment containing the plant bloodroot or zinc chloride, which can destroy large parts of the skin and underlying tissue, leaving behind a thick black scar.

“Things like black salve just kill everything, normal skin cells, abnormal skin cells, it doesn’t matter,” Dr Douglas Grose, president of the Cosmetic Physicians College of Australasia told The Age.

“You can’t control it. All you’re doing is killing the full thickness of the skin and allowing it to scar up. It’s a ridiculous technique.”

In May commissioner Karen Cusack issued Mr Jensen with a 12-week interim prohibition order which banned him from providing any health service while the matter was investigated. On Wednesday that order was extended to an indefinite ban.

This is what happened to a man in Queensland who applied black salve to his head.

‘‘Having considered the evidence, I’m satisfied Mr Jensen contravened the general code of conduct, which applies to all health service providers outside the national registration scheme, when he treated a patient suffering from ovarian cancer with black salve and encouraged the patient to stop evidence-based treatment,’’ Ms Cusack said.

‘‘I have serious concerns about the extent to which Mr Jensen is capable of delivering any general health services safely and ethically.

‘‘Dangerous and unethical practitioners who prey on the desperation and vulnerability of cancer-sufferers, or others suffering terminal illness, won’t be tolerated.’’

Ms Lawson's partner of 21 years, Belinda Davies, told The Age she would drive Ms Lawson out to Mr Jensen's home and watch in disbelief as he put his hands on her body, already “mutilated” from his treatment and say he was driving out the illness.

“He put his hands on her stomach and would breathe out like he was trying to blow away the cancer, telling us that the cancer was gone and there was only a tiny little bit still there,” Belinda said.

“And here she was so swollen and distended and just unbelievably ill.”